Guild 25th Anniversary

Last year Ngaire and I joined the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners Guild which is about 72 kilometers away.  It is a beautiful ocean side drive down Island from where we live in Comox, and well worth it, it is a wonderfully active guild!
This May the Guild celebrates its 25th anniversary and so a challenge went out ~ make something for the May meeting using ‘silver glitz’.

Those who took up the challenge were provided with 20 grams of silver glitz plied with fine white cotton. I wanted to make something completely outside of my comfort zone.   I decided to try my hand at spool knitting; something I haven’t done since I was a child.  My plan was to make a piece of jewellery of some kind.  I was still vague about what at this stage!

I didn’t have a spool knitter, so Michael made me this one using dowel and nails ~ lovely and rustic, just like I remembered ... and the best part is that it worked like a charm!

As soon as I started I came across three major problems.  The first was that the silver yarn provided by the guild was too white ~ so I switched to this silver from my stash.

The second problem was that the silver yarn by itself was too thin, so I added a thread of silver Tencel for shine and bulk ~ luckily I had just a wee bit left after weaving this 12 Shaft Advancing Twill Scarf.

The third problem was that the spool knitted cord collapsed onto itself and was far to floppy and skinny.  So I bought a meter of silver cord and pushed it into the center of the cord to add bulk.

Once the meter of cord was knitted up I had to find something to make ~ this is when ‘google’ did its magic and I found these printable instructions for making a Bumble Bee Knot.

Since I had set off without a plan; I now had to find a way to finish the ends of the scarf.  I immediately ruled out tassels and found myself searching for jewellery findings that would fit the ends of the cord.  Ngaire found this in the mark down bin at Fabricland and it’s perfect!

This is my finished necklace, just in time for the celebration!

Final Garden Shot is a double flower yellow Japanese Rose (Kerria Japonica 'Pleniflora).